A total of $2.1 billion in venture capital (VC) was poured into Vietnam’s startup industry in 2021. In the same period, the country’s digital economy hit $21 billion, Ascend Vietnam Ventures’ Binh Tran told Bloomberg in January 2022. With all the success in investments and global VCs backing Vietnamese-owned as well as Vietnam-based startups, Vietnam is expected to emerge as the third-largest startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia along with Singapore and Indonesia, according to a report by VC firm Golden Gate. A “rising star” in the startup scene, the firm said.
As of December 2021, Vietnam has over 3,800 startups, including four unicorns (companies valued at over $1 billion) VNG, VnPay, Sky Mavis, and MoMo. There are 11 others valued at more than $100 million each.
While the common misconception is for startups to work, they must be in a developed country with resources readily available. However, startups can get off the ground anywhere, and more often than not, it’s the countries with the highest needs that present the biggest opportunities. And that’s true in Vietnam. After all, startups are the centers of innovation and they create jobs which means more employment, and more employment means an improved economy.
Vietnam’s digital economy offers a great deal of opportunities for disruption at scale. Fintech, edtech, proptech, e-commerce, and enterprise solutions are the key sectors in the country’s startup space. It’s worth noting that foreign investors and the recent improvements to streamline investment regulations surrounding foreign investors such as VCs have played a key role in fueling the growth of Vietnam’s startup ecosystem.
One important factor why Vietnam has emerged as a regional startup hub in Southeast Asia is the support the Vietnamese government gives to encourage entrepreneurship. They have established funds at State and provincial/city levels to support startups. Furthermore, the government has initiated programs that provide loans, technical training, and business mentoring. They’ve also worked with countries and banks to develop funding and innovation strategies.
Just three months in, 2022 is off to a good start for the founders and tech entrepreneurs in the country. To celebrate the promising future for the industry, we listed 12 startup companies that announced their successful funding rounds from January to March.
Med247
Amount raised: $4.5 million
Capital round: Series A
Investors: Led by Altara Ventures. Pavilion Capital (Temasek Holdings), MiRXES, and angel investors East Ventures and Venturra Ventures participated in the round.
Launched in 2019 with seed funding from venture capital investment firm KK Fund, Med247 is a health tech startup in Vietnam that operates under an offline-to-online model. They offer a mobile telehealth app where users can book clinic appointments, access remote teleconsultation with doctors, request electronic medical records, and order prescription medicines and tests for delivery. With their latest funding, Med247 plans to put up more family clinics and set up a training academy for doctors and nurses to accelerate R&D (research and development) efforts.
Jio Health
Amount raised: $20 million
Capital round: Series B
Investors: Led by Heritas Capital, a Singapore-based healthcare investor. Other investors include Thailand’s Fuchsia Ventures and Kasikorn Bank Group, and existing investor, Monk’s Hill Ventures.
Jio Health is a provider of human-centered and technology-powered healthcare in Vietnam. The success of this fundraiser lets Jio Health achieve aggressive growth with plans to expand its Smart Clinics and omnichannel ecosystem across the country, its primary market, and eventually pave the way for expansion into regional markets in the coming years. The new investment will also extend the startup’s clinical service offering to more consumers and employers, support the launch of additional Smart Clinics in existing and new locations, expand provider and clinical support teams, and further advance technology platform innovation.
Medici
Founder: Duc Anh Ngo
Amount raised: Undisclosed
Capital round: Pre-Series A
Investors: Co-led by Wavemaker Partners and Jungle Ventures. Existing investor Insignia Venture Partners also participated in the round.
Founded by a former Grab acquisition manager in 2019, Medici is a healthcare and insurance platform that aims to make healthcare and insurance more accessible and affordable for people in Vietnam. Medici has partnered with more than 50 hospitals and clinics to provide health-screening services. They also host an in-house doctor-influencer network as well as a drugs and supplements marketplace. The fresh funds will be used to scale up its insuretech footprint, expand its healthcare offering, and hire across different roles in the organization. They will also scale up their nationwide insurance agent network and advance their technology capability to empower traditional agents with data-driven marketing and customer service tools.
FoodMap
Amount raised: $3 million
Capital round: Series A
Investors: Led by Beenext and Vulpes Venture. The funding round was also joined Ascend Vietnam Ventures and existing investor Wavemaker Partners.
FoodMap is an agritech e-commerce platform that connects farmers and small- and medium-sized agricultural producers with end consumers to provide transparency and traceability of farm produce. According to their founder, FoodMap will use the fresh capital in expansion plans by recruiting key personnel and developing warehouse and operation systems.
Ancient8
Founders: Howard Xu, Thuat Nguyen, Jenny Nguyen, William Phan, and Nathan L.
Amount raised: $4 million
Capital round: Seed
Investors: Led by Dragonfly Capital, Pantera Capital, and Hashed. They also received strategic backing from Mechanism Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, 3Twelve Capital, Coin98 Ventures, Kyros Ventures, and others.
Founded in 2021 by pioneers in Vietnam’s crypto ecosystem and educating Vietnamese users, Ancient8's mission is to reach, educate and empower the next 100 million metaverse citizens. “On this journey to democratize social and financial access in the Metaverse, we’re fortunate and proud to be accompanied by our dearest friends, backers, and community,” reads their announcement. “The funds will be used to accelerate Ancient8’s development of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) to create a community and software platform that enables everyone to play and build in the Metaverse while earning rewards, with an emphasis on the Solana ecosystem.”
Rino
Amount raised: $3 million
Capital round: Pre-Seed
Investors: Global Founders Capital, Sequoia Capital India, Venturra Discovery, and Saison Capital
Founded in 2022 by Trung Thanh Nguyen, who previously worked as the COO of Beamin Vietnam and the Head of Grab Vietnam’s Two-Wheel business, Rino is a Vietnamese rapid commerce business that targets the final mile of the supermarket industry, seeking to deliver fast and dependable items “at the touch of a button.” They plan on allocating the funding to utilize the capital to speed up the implementation of its 10-minute fast delivery plan by opening hundreds of “dark shops,” which are retail distribution centers or warehouses that only serve online customers. A chunk of the money will go toward developing Rino’s logistics units, which will start in Ho Chi Minh City.
Starbots
Founder: Kien Vuong
Amount raised: $2.4 million
Capital round: Seed
Investors: Impossible Finance, Defi Alliance, Solar Eco Fund, Parsiq, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, TomoChain, Game Studio, LuaVentures, Kyber Network, Solscan, Kyros Ventures, BigCoin Capital, Good Game Guilds, TK Ventures,Quadhorn Guild and Real Deal Guild
Starbots is a Road Town, BVI-based maker of a battle NFT game on Solana where players can strategically assemble their own robots to win battles, complete missions, and conquer new lands. Per the founder, Starbots intends to use the funds to accelerate growth, and expand operations and its business reach. Besides seeing support from top VCs and companies, Starbots also features a high-impact advisory board that includes Bored Elon, the founder of MetaMars; Calvin Chu, the core builder at Impossible Finance; William Robinson, core Contributor of DeFi Alliance, and Long Vuong, the founder of TomoChain.
OpenCommerce Group
Amount raised: $7 million
Capital round: Series A
Investors: Led by Vietnamese unicorn VNG along with participation from Vietnamese venture capital firm Do Ventures.
Founded in 2014, OpenCommerce Group (OCG) is an online shopping startup that offers merchants a barrier-free and automated cross-border e-commerce platform. They will be using the fresh funding proceeds for product improvements and global expansion. OCG provides solutions for the drop shipping and print-on-demand business models, where merchants fulfill orders on-demand and ship them from the manufacturer or wholesaler directly to the buyer. The solutions offer a complete suite of services from marketing and order management to shipping and payments for consumers.
Mio
Amount raised: $8 million
Capital round: Series A
Investors: Led by Jungle Ventures, with participation from Patamar Capital and Oliver Jung. Existing investors GGV, Venturra, Hustle Fund, iSEED SEA, and Gokul Rajaram also returned for the round.
Founded in 2020, Mio is a group buying platform that focuses on selling fresh produce and groceries in Tier 2 and 3 cities in Vietnam. The company is able to offer next-day delivery because it built a logistics infrastructure that enables it to send products directly from farms to customers. The latest funding will be used to expand its logistics and fulfillment system, enter new areas in the country and add new product categories like fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and household appliances.
M Village
Founder: Nguyen Hai Ninh
Amount raised: $1.7 million
Capital round: Seed
Investors: Led by Singaporean venture fund Simple Tech Investment.
M Village is an accommodation startup in co-living spaces founded by the founder and ex-CEO of The Coffee House, a HCMC-based coffee chain. The business model of M Village is to cooperate with landlords to renovate real estate into accommodation facilities. After that, they would provide short-term and long-term accommodation services with working space, dining facilities, and community connections. "With the fund of 1,7 million USD, M Village would continue to enhance its technologies to boost convenience for the residents,” per the founder. “We would also expand our business to other districts in Ho Chi Minh City. We expect that to be the largest accommodation provider in Ho Chi Minh City this year and will become the largest in Vietnam by 2024.”
Bave
Amount raised: $1 million
Capital round: Pre-Seed
Investors: Touchstone Partners
Founded in 2018, Bave is a car ecosystem platform that connects drivers with merchants selling car equipment and parts as well as with businesses providing car financing and vehicle servicing. It also runs Agara, an inventory manager for garages and body shops, and CarGo, a car service booking app. The fresh funds will be used to scale its operations as it plans to develop a secondhand car marketplace.
Selly
Founder: Tuan Thong
Amount raised: $2.6 million
Capital round: Pre-Series A
Investors: CyberAgent Capital, Do Ventures, Genesia Ventures, Jafco Asia and Kvision
Selly is a pioneering social commerce startup based in Da Nang, Vietnam. Selly has created employment opportunities for hundreds of thousands of women and people who lost their jobs or income due to COVID-19. The social commerce platform makes entrepreneurship accessible for anyone and helps people generate sustainable income without any investment or sales operations required. “The fresh capital will be utilized to improve product features to offer the best experience for our resellers and suppliers, as well as expand the startup’s presence in more remote areas in Vietnam so that everyone will have the opportunity to earn a sustainable income," Tuan said.